1st Grade Artists
1st grade finished up this exciting school year by painting some very large and silly frogs! Students got a piece of 18x24" paper to paint their frogs. They were all given the same paints but every frog was very unique from the next. Before they started painting we talked about using simple shapes, not mixing wet paints, and adding unique details that will make their frog different from their neighbors. This really showed how their imagination has grown throughout the year. The 1st graders kept thoroughly impressing me with their talents and the growth they made throughout the year. I cannot wait to see how they will keep developing their artistic talents next year! Happy summer :)
Self-Portraits! 1st grade students learned about facial features and facial proportions. Day 1 we did some practicing. We drew together all of the facial features and talked about where all of the facial features are located on our faces. Such as eyes are in the middle of our head, nose is in the middle of the eyes and chin, the edge of the nose lines up with the corner of the eyes, ears go from the eyes to the bottom of the nose and so many more! This practice really helped for the next day when students got mirrors and drew themselves. We talked about drawing what you see and not what you think you know. Once they were drawn, they traced with sharpie, and colored with crayon. They did such a great job on capturing themselves and their unique characteristics!
Fun with clay! This was the first time a lot of students used clay and they did an excellent job with it! The students learned terms such as coil and slip and score. The students started out by rolling a coil. Next they added the legs and slip and scored so they didn't fall off. Next they pinched the clay to form the head and added eyes, mouth, and nose. Last they pinched down both sides of the alligator's back. Some students added some creative details! They didn't get to see their creations for almost two weeks then because of dry time and firing. Once they were out of the kiln it was paint time. They used green, yellow, white, and black paint to paint their alligators how they wanted. First time clay project was a serious success for them!
1st grade artists became very familiar with the illustrator and author, Eric Carle! We read an Eric Carle book every day and loved everyone of them! The books really inspired their creations! To make the background paper, the students had paper that was saturated by a "magic potion" then stuck bleeding tissue paper to it. We talked about saturate and evaporate. Once the students had the papers covered in tissue paper, it was sprayed one last time with the "magic potion" and sent to the dry rack to dry. The next day was making the paper to create their animal. This was made my finger painting! Each student made two papers. A large glob of paint was put on their paper and they could use their hands or tools, such as forks, to create textures and patterns in the paint. Next week the students created their animals. They could create any animal they wanted but it had to be collaged together. They cut out pieces of the body to collage it together to create an animal. Last step was to decorate and add detail with some fun materials such as googgly eyes, pipe cleaners, beads, and buttons. These turned out too cute and the process of making them was a blast! They had a lot of fun with this project!
1st grade started out this project by reading the book "Mouse Paint" by Ellen Stoll. The story tells about 3 little white mice that hide from a cat on white paper. But one day there was paint that they covered themselves in, danced around in puddles of paint and they discovered that certain colors mixed together make another colors. Students learned about primary colors, secondary colors, the color wheel, and how to make a color wheel. Once they knew how to mix all of their colors they started to paint their mice with tempera paint. Once they were dry they could draw on details like eyes, whiskers, and any other interesting details. Next was making the cat. They discussed what color cats they've seen and they started to color their own cat. Once they were colored they were ready to be cut out and glued on to peek over at those mice. The kids were given only the primary colors for this project and had to mix all of the secondary colors. They did an excellent job and LOVED mixing the secondary colors. There's always something magical about mixing colors.
How we look at things was the talk in 1st grade. We talked about perspective and aerial perspective and how we are seeing things from the sky. The first step was to make a background by making snowflakes with white crayon and painting over them with watered down blue tempera paint. The paint resists the crayon and the snowflakes show through. Next we cut 3 different size circles. It was great to see how far they've come with cutting circles from the beginning of the year in our Wassily Kandinsky project. Then they used oil pastel to create a shadow around the edges of the "snowballs." They smeared it with their fingers and added buttons and a face. Next was making a scarf out of strips of paper and adding pattern with oil pastel. They made a carrot nose and arms out of construction paper. They talked about what snowballs would the arms and scarf be glued under. Once everything was glued together, the whole snowman was glued to the background. These snowmen turned out great and showed a lot of personality! Their perspective on these snowmen were sky high!
Laurel Birch inspired owls were next for 1st grade. We talked about the artist Laurel Birch, her interests in animals, patterns, and quilts. Laurel Birch liked to focus on cats, but the 1st grade were focused on owls. First they traced 2 owl forms and cut them out. They really had to focus on cutting slowly and carefully along their pencil lines so both owls would match up when they were sewn together. Next was using line to divide the owls into sections and adding patterns in each section, all with crayon. Next was painting over the crayon pattern with watercolor. We talked about crayon resist and how the wax in the crayon resists the watercolor. My 1st grade painters really took their time following the lines of each section and using a different color. Next was talking about expression and how expression can be shown just through eyes. We talked about eyelids, the iris, and pupil of an eye. They folded a piece of paper in half to cut out 2 eyes and colored them with crayon. They also folded a piece of paper in half to cut out their beaks. The last step was to sew them together and stuff them. They were shown a loop stitch to sew them together and put paper towel in them to give them some volume. They did a great job with sewing them together and bringing them to life with some poof. The owls turned out so great. Right now, if you walk down Elmwood's main hallway, you'll see many owl eyes in the display cases :)
1st grade spent some time on Native American culture. They learned about kachina dolls and pattern blankets. The students could choose from 9 different kachina dolls. This was all about drawing what you see. We talked about looking for simple shapes and starting in one area and building on. These turned out so great! I was very impressed with the drawing skills of all the 1st graders. They were excellent at drawing what they see and paying attention to detail. Some of them even got into shading dark and light areas. Next were pattern blankets. They looked at a lot of different Native American blankets, talked about different materials that were used, and the patterns within them, then they got to make their own. They started out by cutting the fringe for the top and bottom by holding 2 pieces of paper together and cutting, but not all the way through. They glued them onto the bottoms of their blankets and started filling their blanket with pattern first by drawing horizontal lines across the paper. Next was a "zig-zag skip" pattern. Once they had all of their zig zags on, they could add their own pattern into rest of the spaces. Color and detail were encouraged. The students designed some interesting and unique pattern blankets! View the slideshow below to see many more kachina dolls and pattern blankets.
1st grade students learned about the artist Wassily Kandinsky. Students discussed how Wassily used color, line, and geometric shapes in his artwork. First the students painted their background with watercolor in the rainbow color order. Next they drew circles on different color paper, then cut out the circles. We talked about moving the paper as they cut and following the pencil lines to get smooth, round circles. They had to have at least 3 circles in each set and have 5 or more circle sets. Students discussed how you wouldn't want to put the same color circle on top of one another because they would blend in, and also making sure that the circles fit inside of one another. Once they cut out all of their circles they could start gluing them together and putting them on their background. Students talked about glue control and gluing on the circles and not the background paper. Their colorful Wassily Kandinsky inspired art turned out wonderful and filled the halls with lots of beautiful rainbow color!
First grade started the year off with some crazy hair! The students created their "Crazy Hair Day" by using different kind of line and coloring in the order of the rainbow. They sure created some wacky hair!